Niagara Falls

This summer went quickly, but they all do.  Charles did some touring to Los Angeles and Tokyo before coming back to NYC in early August.  In fact, in Tokyo he went through a typhoon and earthquake followed by an earthquake and a hurricane in New York.

We have taken many short trips to Long Beach and Governor’s Island (Video) locally and to Niagara Falls, Ontario. (Video)  The Falls delights all ages.  There is something about the breadth and grandeur that is spellbinding.  We rented a car and left early one morning for a 5 hour drive to a water park in Canandaigua, in the Fingerlakes district of New York State.  We amused ourselves on the way up by using Miranda’s iPhone to locate a Starbucks that was not too far off the highway anywhere in the middle of northeastern Pennsylvania.  Eventually, we did find one and recaffeinated.

The waterpark was fun for the boys.  There were huge slides and gigantic slides.  We went down most of them.  The wave pool and the water playground were also fun. All of July, Miranda had taken the boys to a pool close to our apartment so they were perfectly at home in the water. 

Exhausted from 4½ hours of exercise, we left the waterpark and drove to Batavia, NY, where we checked into a motel, had some health food at Burger King and went to sleep.  The next morning we drove into Niagara Falls, NY across multiple bridges and along roads Robert Moses designed.  We went across the Rainbow Bridge into Niagara Falls, Ontario as Charles had been told that the best views were from the Canadian side.  Immigration was easy and after a few wrong turns that gave us magnificent views we managed to arrive at the Hilton.

Amazingly they gave us a room at 10:30am so we took our few things upstairs (to the 30^th floor) and unpacked to stunning views of the American and Canadian Falls.  We had brought the portable espresso machine and milk frother with us so we made some coffees and just sat and enjoyed the view for a while.

Next we were off to the Maid of the Mist, probably the most famous attraction at the Falls. It didn’t take long until we were on the boat with mist spraying all over us.  We donned rain ponchos but we still got rather wet. The sound was thrilling, so much water falling so far, crashing onto the rocks close to us. The tour boat which must have had a strong, tugboat engine made its way up to within about 100 yards of the falling water of the Horseshoe Falls.  Essentially, the boat was surrounded on 3 sides by falling water. Miranda took photos and videos despite the mist and we’re glad she did.

We enjoyed a little snack at a café above the dock (which had an amazing view too) then Max suggested we not go directly to the next attraction, Under the Falls, but instead, go back to our room to rest, go for a swim, and then go to the attraction.  It was an excellent idea and we enjoyed the view more and had a swim in the hotel pool which had a 3 story waterslide built into it.

When that was all done it was too late to go Under the Falls so we merely strolled around the strip and then down to the walkway along the Canadian side of the Falls. The next morning, after another swim, we went Under the Falls.  It was claustrophobic and very noisy, and Charles misplaced my Maui Jim’s somewhere and to his great chagrin, never found them.

We went for on last swim before checking out.  Immigration on the US side took a little longer.  We wondered why the line to come to Canada was short in the morning and long in the evening and vice versa for the US side.  One possible explanation could be that there are casinos on the Canadian side.  Before heading home we stopped on the US side of the falls at Niagara Falls State Park.  Though the view was not as good, our proximity to the falls was even closer.  The water at the top was crystal clear so one could see the rock bottom about 3 to 5 feet deep despite the swiftness of the running water.

The 6½ hour drive home was punctuated by two very strong thunderstorms.  It didn’t make driving any easier, especially the downpour on I-80 just before getting to the GW Bridge, going 60mph surrounded by semi-trucks!   But by the time we arrived at our door it had stopped raining. 

We all agreed we could have spent one more day in Niagara Falls. 

The MCG -- Melbourne

Football is big in Melbourne.  Australian Rules football, called “Footy”, is nothing like American football which Aussies refer to as “gridiron”.  (What?...oh, right.)  Its roots are in Melbourne where 10 of the 18 teams are based.  Originally the Victorian Football League (VFL), it only recently (1990) expanded beyond Melbourne and became the Australian Football League (AFL). 

 The Melbourne teams take their names from local neighborhoods, St. Kilda Saints, Carlton Blues, North Melbourne Kangaroos etc.  Sydney has only one team, the Sydney Swans (which is somewhat confusing as the Swan River flows through Perth).  Allegiance to teams is strong and attendance at the games is high.

We “barrack” for Carlton.  Max and Riley’s uncle Andrew is a “member” and got us 4 seats at the Melbourne Cricket Ground for a Carlton vs Richmond match on our last Saturday in Australia.  We four, Max, Riley, Will (age 6) and I sat in great seats in the huge stadium which seats over 100,000.  Andrew was there too, but had to attend to clients in his firm’s box.

Like soccer, play never stops and the players, 18 per team, wear no protective helmets or pads.  From the first bounce of the ball to the final horn there is continuous action, in fact, if one player holds the ball for more than a few seconds the fans jeer at him to kick it away.  The playing field is a huge oval about 150 meters long.  The ball is ovoid and slightly larger than an American football.

The ball is moved around the oval by kicking or hand-passing (hitting the ball off your hand) to a teammate.  If you have the ball you can be tackled which often causes a pile up and the referee then determines (mysteriously) who get possession of the ball.  Points are scored by kicking the ball through the 4 posts at either end of the oval. 

A game is four 30-minute quarters long and the stadium clock doesn’t stop during the quarter. However after a goal is scored the officials stop their clock briefly until play resumes.  This creates an interesting and sometimes very exciting tension at the end of the game. In a high scoring game, after the last quarter expires, there can be several more minutes of play until the horn blows announcing the end of the game.  Only the officials know exactly how much time that is.

The match we saw was high scoring with Carlton winning 156 to 67.  After the game all of the players shook hands in a wonderful display of good-sportsmanship, especially since they had been beating up on each other for the last 2 hours!

The boys lasted the duration with proper administration of drinks, “chips” and trips to the gift store.  Andrew met us afterwards at our seats and walked us out to where he had parked his car.  There is no parking lot per se; cars are parked in a semi-coherent way on the uneven grassy grounds around the MCG.  It looks a little crazy but seems to work just fine.

The next day we made a trip to Rebel Sport on Chapel St. in Prahran to buy some Footy balls for Max and Riley.  Miranda said, “We’re not taking those home, are we?”  Since we’ve been back we’ve practiced our kicking and hand-passing several times in Central Park!

Thanks Uncle Andrew for giving us a great day and a new experience! 

Healesville Sanctuary

Max, Riley and I took a trip up to the Healesville Sanctuary about 80 miles northeast of Melbourne.  The devastating bushfires in February 2009 had burned within a few miles of Healesville. Luckily the fire didn’t go down the hillside into the Sanctuary.

The day was overcast and a little too cool for our liking but it was a good opportunity for us to see the Australian wildlife as Miranda had flown up to the Gold Coast for a couple of days to visit her friend Michele. 

We had been to Healesville 3 years ago when Riley was 5 and Max was 2.  Riley said he remembered some of it, Max, nothing.  Despite the cool temperatures we had a fun time with the emus, kangaroos, wallabies, echidnas, wombats, Tasmanian devils (they say “Tazzy” devils!), blue-tongued lizards, etc.  One of the koalas was awake and looking around.  Last visit they were all sound asleep.

They have a raptor show in a small outdoor arena which is fun.  Falconers with heavy gauntlets bring out eagles, owls, buzzards (a Black Breasted Buzzard named Beatrice to be exact) and hawks.  They fly right over the heads of the audience close enough that Max said, “His wing touched my cheek!”  None of my photos of the birds turned out as my shutter speed was set way too slow.  Every photo was a blur of feathers!

On the way out we stopped in the gift shop to see if there were stuffed animals that we DIDN’T have, and sure enough we came home with a kookaburra and platypus.

Miranda came in that evening and had insisted on taking the bus into the city from the airport, then catching a tram back home.  Several hours later she arrived a little frazzled.   Public transport is good in Melbourne but you need a little patience.  

Driving on the Wrong Side of the Road

We arrived in Melbourne (flew on a new A-380 -- nice!) on time (those flights don’t have much room for error!), cleared customs quickly and picked up our rental car.  I asked Miranda to keep an eye on me for a while as it had been 3 years since I’d driven in Australia.   I do have an Aussie Driver Licence (their spelling!) but every time I come back it still feels like I’m “driving on the wrong side of the road”!   The boys fell asleep in the car on the way in to Genna’s (Miranda’s sister) house.  We took our time because I wanted to stop at a store in the “CBD” to get some of my favorite coffee –“midnight oil” is its name.  Alas, the store was gone, NO COFFEE! 

We arrived home and the boys woke, they were now officially on the new time zone.  They are perfect travelers.  No one was home so we unpacked leisurely.  Ron called on his iPhone 4 from New York and we stood our  iPhone up on the desk and FaceTimed with him for 30 minutes as we were putting things away; excellent smooth picture, simultaneous audio, to someone 10,000 miles away – amazing technology, oh yeah, and free, too!

Melbourne is mild in the winter.  It usually goes just above 60 in the mid-afternoon and drops to 40 at night.   “Four seasons in every day” is one way weather is described in Melbourne, for instance, right now it’s hailing but I can see lots of blue sky!  Everything is still very green as there is daily rain (thought not much) and the Aussie trees keep their leaves but lose their bark!

We went to the store and stocked up on TimTams, Vegemite, Magnums, VitaWheats, and other Aussie fare that we can’t get in New York.  It’s always fun exploring a grocery store in a different country.

Miranda had a great reunion with her family when they all arrived home later that evening.

William Chambers, Riley & Max’s cousin, had his 6^th birthday party the following day.  It was an Aussie-rules footie party with lots of running, kicking, passing and goal scoring.  We all were barracking for Carlton – Go Blues! The weather was beautiful that afternoon.  Miranda and Gen had made a footie cake that was delicious, even more so because we forgot to bring a knife with us to cut the cake so it had to be scooped out with a plastic spoon.